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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XX. 



made such a slaughter amongst them, that there were few of 

 whom he could be in fear; and thus he was so hated by all, that 

 they longed for his death : and because neither by poison nor 

 by arms could they cause it, on account of the great care that 

 he took of himself, they introduced into his dwellings such 

 fetishes 1 , and of such power, that the tyrant began to dry up 

 and grow lean without knowing the cause, and so came to fall 

 helpless upon his bed. The ringleaders in this conspiracy were 

 two of his relatives, Reigao Pandar 2 and Curale Petra Pandar 3 , 

 and his chief sangatar, that is, chief priest, like the archbishop 

 amongst us 4 : but the devil who wove all these tissues of lies 

 himself revealed it, whereby the relatives were forthwith put 

 to death, and the priest stoned and cut in pieces. This made 

 him resolve to distrust all the nobles, and he went on putting 

 them to death under various excuses, whether they were 

 guilty or not, so that there remained not a single person of 

 the caste of the ancient noble Chingalas 5 . The fetishes did not 

 cease to operate, but rather went on increasing every day, 

 and at last he came to suspect what it was : wherefore he 

 commanded to dismantle all his dwellings in the part that 

 he used, in order to see if he could -find the fetishes ; but 

 nothing was discovered for all they searched, and in spite of 

 many tortures that he inflicted on persons in order to see if 

 they would confess anything. And being of that spirit, he 

 did not cease his cruelty, because the devil stirred him up 

 therein in such fashion that the tyrant gave his vassals to 

 understand that all that he did was by order of the gods, and 

 that his idols had counselled him ; and in order to make them 

 believe it he invented this method 6 . He took certain persons, 

 instructed as to what they were to do, and in great secrecy 

 placed them in a house where he had the idols, and then com- 

 manded to summon all those whom he desired to put to death, 

 in the presence of others whom he wished to remain as witnesses, 

 so as to exercise authority over all, and then performed certain 

 ceremonies before the pagodes, and asked them for the names 

 of the persons that had bewitched him, and those whom he 

 had hidden inside replied, as if they were the idols, " So-and-so. 



1 In original feitiQos, from which the English word is derived. Huni- 

 yam charms are doubtless meant (see C. A. S. Jl. 1865-6, pp. 68-78, 

 1881-2, pp. 116-24). 



2 See supra, p. 277, note 5 . 



3 This apparently represents Kerawalapitiy6 Bandara, but I can find 

 no record of such a person. 



1 See supra, p. 68, note x . 



8 This is not correct, as we shall see later. 



" Compare what follows with a similar statement on p. 292 infra. 



